One important consideration in the provision of health care is the allocation, utilization and consumption of resources such as labor, durable equipment, reusable supplies and disposable supplies. For example, one way for supplies to be obtained by hospitals is for a central supply service to order the individual supplies anticipated to be needed for a given time period. These supplies are maintained in a supply room until needed for a given procedure. Once a procedure is scheduled, a pick list (a list of supplies) is generated. A hospital employee then uses the pick list to withdraw the desired items from inventory and place them in the operating room where the procedure takes place. After the procedure is completed, unused supplies are returned to inventory, a list of used supplies is provided to the billing department, and the used supplies are disposed of or re-sterilized. However, this system is costly and inefficient.
For example, a relatively large inventory of supplies has to be maintained, particularly for standard items such as drapes, sponges, sutures, clamps, etc., which could be used in a large variety of procedures. The inventory of such items has to be large in order to insure that sufficient quantities are on hand for every procedure. Furthermore, the act of picking items for surgery and, later, restocking unused items, is onerous and expensive since relatively highly skilled labor is utilized to insure that the proper items were collected and that the restocked items are placed in the proper location. In particular, the restocking of unused items is a substantial burden on the hospital. Each item pulled from inventory has to be either used and billed for, or restocked and not billed for. If an item is not used during the procedure and is billed for anyway, the billing for that product could be considered fraud on the reimburser. Since items are often individually wrapped, the restocking procedure could be very time consuming, particularly where sufficient quantities of items are picked from inventory to cover any situation during surgery. For example, it is not uncommon to withdraw ten clamps from inventory and use only three or four, except in situations where heavy bleeding is encountered, which might necessitate the use of all ten.
What is needed, therefore, is an integrated information system for use in healthcare institutions for managing, optimizing and analyzing the use of resources within that institution.